mayor lee, supervisors, come on up. and while they are doing that, let's get started. what a beautiful, beautiful day, give yourselves a round of applause. [ applause ] >> fantastic. this is like winning a pennant and how about those san francisco giants.

i actually want to marco scutaro wanna be, but it's not going to work and today i will settle formality city librarian luis herr ra and i would like to welcome each and every one of you to our ceremony today. this is indeed a milestone because it's not only the beginning of construction to a new new library, but it's the end of the program, which means it's a long time coming. {$}[ applause ], what it means that this is the last project and i want to especially thank. north beach community for your patience, for your persistence and your perseverance to have the state-of-the-art library here in your neighborhood. [ applause ] thank you so much very much. [ applause ]

>> let's talk a little bit about this library. it's going to be 60% larger than the other library that sits over there. 60% larger. that means more books, more media, wonderful technology, wi-fi access. if you envision this space and if you look that way you have a wonderful adult area. as you walk in from the mason street side, you have an amazing teen center for all the young adults. absolutely. yelling back here, [ applause ] . that was our deputy city librarian, what can we say? a wonderful space for children. this north beach library serves over 30,000 diverse residents and it's way overdue to have a state-of-the-art library. clean it's really a true

partnership with our city departments and i want to thank our dpw folks and their team. mindy, lena, fantastic work in managing this project. [ applause ] and another superb partner in phil ginsburg, rec and park, thank you. [ applause ] this is going to be an amazing space that ties together the joe dimaggio park and you will hear more about that. it's wonderful to know that it really creates an amazing civic space for north beach and it wouldn't happen wouldn't fantastic support from the community. julie christinsen, a shout out to you. [ applause ] the. so throughout this ceremony, we're going to celebrate and pay tribute to all of the wonderful folks that are making it happen. so without further ado, person that not only has prior

director of public works, city administrator and now wonderful mayor for our city; who has been terrifically supportive of our city, mayor ed lee. [ applause ] >> how is everybody doing? [ applause ] [ applause ] well let me begin by saying luis, congratulations but you know, when you are as successful as you are have been with the library commission it's like winning the first world series. we're not just satisfied with one project, even though there are 24 of these that have been completed with this one, and the proper use of our library bonds program from beginning from the year 2000 with the great partnership of dpw and so forth. there are more great partnerships to be guilt because guess what we're doing with the bonds that publicly

improves, we're honoring these kids' future. this is a place where there is going to be invent, sharing, yes, exploring, meeting, oh, gosh, what else did we miss? >> meeting. >> instructor: yes, meeting and sharing and exploring and inventing and reading. of course. we're just going to have so much of this and i'm so happy to be working with the supervisors who also know this. because we're working together on things that you believe in. and i'm waiting for the chance, when board president chiu and scott wiener have their kids and when they come to north beach branch library, they will remember this day, when they bring their kids up to the front and say mayor lee and luis herrera and everybody worked together to get this done. and, by the way, more is to

come when we all work together. because today is about a confirmation, the biggest thanks goes to the parents and residents of north beach. ten years it took us to get to this place. a lot of ups and downs and winding and turning. [ applause ] and if it wasn't for people like julie and others, who i met years ago and we looked each other in the eye when i was at dpw and we said we're going to get this done and make it even a better libraries, because libraries are centers for our communities. they are seismically safe. they are going to have the most modern equipment for our kids to grow up and promise all of the things that we promised for them to do to become even better residents. the things that keeps me going and everybody else goes in collaboration, we're doing it for you. it's not about us. it's not about announcements, about things that are

politically smart for us to do. it's about the future of this city. and with these 24 branches, and now the smart thing to do, connect up with great parks. yes. [ applause ] because the vision, julie didn't have a vision of just having a great center library; right? our neighborhoods aren't just going to accept that to be the end. it's to connect it up with world-class parks. that is what prop b is about and why we work together and mohammed comes in and smooths out columbus avenue. because i just road that street and it feels like a construction road [ laughter ] we have got to get all of these roads built and this is what scott wiener and others works on:we have the opportunity to unite everybody and it's up to us in government to have listened carefully, and

be responsible with your money and get the job done. are we ready to get the job done? >> yes! are we ready to build the future for your kids? >> yes. >> are we ready to support the great parks in san francisco with proposition b? >> yes! let's go forward and keep another world series and escambia keep our san francisco successful! thank you, mr. mayor, we're going to have a celebration this morning. he reminded me it's about community spaces too. so take a moment and look up. look up. because that is where the meeting room will be on the second floor with after-hour access for all the poets and all the kids' story times and various activities. it's going to be fantastic. we want to continue our theme of partnerships and teamwork by acknowledging the great staff that has put it all together

and it's going to continue to offer services here in the neighborhood at our current library. and i see robert carlson, robert, would you wave? he is a great community advocate here and does a terrific job. [ applause ] other members of the team, begining with our chief of branches, edward melton, edward, great work. [ applause ] elsie wong, another district manager helping to put it all together. thank you for the fantastic job you do. more partners from our city family. i know our attorney team john is here. congratulations for all the hard work, as well as michael. thank you for helping us through the entire environmental impact reports and all that took many, many years of dedicated work. we really appreciate that. and without further ado,

terrific tenure, president of the board, district supervisor david chiu, thank you so much. [ applause ] >> thank you. >> good morning. the sun is shining on north beach today. i am so happy to be here. i think it's amazing that in the week that we celebrate the giants, we are also celebrating a real tribute to the best baseball legend in history, joe dimaggio! [ applause ] as our librarian just said, the very first meeting i took, even before he was sworn-in, after i was elected was about this library. and i got to tell you, that was only four years of a ten-year struggle. there have been hundreds of meetings coming together. there are high school students today who were preschool students when we started this

conversation. and i have to tell you as we all know, it takes a village to raise our kids, but it has taken many villages to build this library. i want to start first and foremost by thanking three mothers, who helped to lead friends of joe dimaggio, julie christinsen, lizzy diaz and lizziehurst, thank you for all you have done. [ applause ] and i also want to take a moment and thank all of the parents who are here of all the different schools that we have. yes, franklin middle school, garflied, st. peter and paul, what am i missing? sherman, telegraph hill. thank you all for what you are doing. i also want to thank those who have been advocating for our seniors and disabled, our parks

advocates, our library advocates and of course our city staff. we have a lot of acronyms, dpw, ruark, our mayor, planning, thank all for what you have done. [ applause ] . let me just close by saying that our work is not done. and if you remember we had opponents who fought this library. who delayed our being here by years, by millions of dollars and by lawsuits. is some of them may be running to be supervisor of district 3. and some of them are opposing proposition b. boo. >> boo. >> they are fighting our kids. they are fighting our families and they are fighting the next generations, but shame on them. that is right. so let me just say we have done a lot of chants in san francisco like let's go giants.

i have another one for you, let's go prop b, let's go joe d. are you ready, kids? let's go probb, let's go joe d. let's go prop b, let's go joe d. thank you so much. [ applause ] >> all right, is there high-energy today? fantastic. a couple of other colleagues, peers in the city family, tom, who is our arts commission executive director. thank you for joining us. we have a partnership in the arts commission that every new building has public art. i don't know if our artist for north beach is here, bill fontana, we're excited about his work and the opportunity to have beautiful art as part of the project. so bill, thank you. also, we talked about how important access is to our

neighborhood libraries and today we have our acting director in the mayor's office of disability, carla johnson. carla. thank you for joining us. thank you for being here today. [ applause ] our next supervisor who also does not need much of an introduction because he is at every single library opening. a terrific staunch supporter and advocate for public libraries supervisor scott wiener. thank you for joining us [ applause ] . >> thank you, luis and congratulations on this great day moving forward. i go to library openings partly because mine were done by the time i took office. i have public library opening envy. this project in particular, north beach branch library and joe dimaggio has had a special place in my heart and i have been especially an outspoken supporter of this project and, in fact when we were putting

together prop b, the parks fund and we needed to make room in the for joe dimaggio, i went to the rec and park commission to have it included even though it wasn't in my district. some people have asked me scott why you do care so much about this project when it's not even in your district? we might be representing districts, but we are one city fundamentally. [ applause ] and just like your great supervisor david chiu supports things that happen in my district i want to support north beach and this part of the city. even more important, this project, this fight about the north beach branch library, about joe dimaggio, fundamentally was about whether we were going to be moving forward as a city. whether we were going to focus just on the past or also on the future of our city. whether we were going to focus

on what recreation was like 25 or 50 years ago or what needs to happen today and in the future in san francisco? and we won that battle and we sent a clear message that that city has a strong future for everyone and we're going to make it happen. thank you and congratulations. [applause] >> thank you, scott. appreciate it. i did mention that the library is thriving? did i mention that last year we had 7.2 million visitor to our libraries? it's exciting to know that and it's the only larguishan library that did not suffer any reductions or cutbacks during the economic downturn. you provided that stable funding and thank you, again for all of your terrific support. with that i would like to call to the mic our great partner, the department of water and the folks that oversee the entire construction and management of

the projects, mohammed. thank you [ applause ] >> thank you, and good morning everyone. are you as excited as i am? all right. let me just start by thanking the community for this long-awaited project. we went through several hoops. it's been ten years. we have gone through almost every commission. we went through the legal battle and you all stood with us and we're here today to break ground on this great library, big hand for all of those who put that effort in. [ applause ] this project is the 24th library that our agency has been involved in. we have renovated 16 libraries, and we have built 6 new ones. the 23rd is in the bayview in my neighborhood and that will be ready for groundbreaking in january and for completion and opening in january and now we're groundbreaking on this project. as part of this project, you

will be getting a two-story library. it will be designed for led silver or greater and sustainable and as opposed to the old library it will be ready for the big one, seismically fit. something mayor lee has put forth in his leadership as mayor is that it will bring a lot of jobs and this library will be the first library to undergo the new local hiring law, meaning that 25% of san franciscans will be working on this project. big hand for mayor lee and the board of supervisors for their leadership u. [ applause ] i would like to thank our management team, edgar lopez under his direction lena chen and her team have been doing a wonderful job and they will be

making sure that we deliver this project on time and on budget as we have done in other projects. [ applause ] . the architect marshall leyden has been with us from the beginning of this project since 2003 and she worked very hard with the community and the design is a very sustainable design. there will be great views of north beach from all sides of library and it's going to be a very, very beautiful building. i am very proud to be part of it and i'm sure you will enjoy it. big hand to the architects. [ applause ] . the contractors who prepared the event for today,cl w, we have worked with them on many of the rec and park and library projects and they will be delivering this project. i'm just so happy, because they have done great work with us. i want to extend my appreciation to them. big hand forclw, please. [ applause ] and of course, where is dennis

oats? this guy is going to be here everyday making sure that the project is done well and built to spec. dennis oats, please let everybody know and if you have questions about this library, that is the man to talk to, dennis oats. [ applause ] >> lastly, i wanted to especially thank luis and his staff. luis in so many meetings had the opportunity to change the course or do something different and he stuck there all the way. he continued to encourage us. this is what i want. we need to get it and all the battles that we went through, luis was there and made good, sound decisions along with the library commission and that is why we're here today with that great project. big hand for luis and his leadership and the library. [ applause ] and of course, the project will be a library and a park and we need to do more projects like that in san francisco. so

joining everybody, i'm looking forward to this groundbreaking and i'm looking forward to coming back for the grand opening. thank you very much. thank you. [ applause ] thank you, mohammed. we definitely have a mutual admiration society among all department heads. our next department head, he and i take the show on the road to promote literacy and to promote parks. i will let him tell the story, phil ginsburg. [ applause ] >> thank you, luis. his alter ego, what we call each other, he is before mr. books and i am mr. park and this gentleman is mr. clean. [ laughter ] >> it's such a joy to be here and such a celebrate tory week. there has been a lot of talk this week about team and putting team before self and that is not just happening on the ballfield at at&t park, but

it's happening in your city and we're so incredibly blessed to have the leadership that we have in mayor lee, board president chiu and supervisor wiener. in no time that i have been involved in the city has both the mayor and board worked together to focus on helping families thrive, through better parks, through better streets, through better libraries and our city leadership deserves such a big round of applause fortaking these steps [ applause ] i also really want to single out our partnership with mr. parks and the library. this is how cities are supposed to be. i don't know if many of you had the opportunity to come and join us at the west sunset ribbon-cutting, when we jointly opened the ortega public library and playground in this beautiful space on a beautiful

sunny day just like this we celebrated a brand-new hub and we did it actually out in the sunset and this might just be the crown jewel of them all. if proposition b passes, it's $5.5 million to at long last rebuild joe dimaggio playground and create for this space all of the incredible potential that it has. my very, very first day on the job, my very first day as s as rec and park director i met with luis and my staff and said there are only six words that you need to know. that is it. do you remember them in a? there are only six words that you need to know and that is,

"the library belongs on the triangle." [ laughter ] and here we are on the triangle. [ applause ] so my last big thank you and before i give my last thank i want to recognize recreation and park and plan commissioner cindy wu is also here. thank you, cindy. [ applause ] my last big thank you is to you. is to the friends of joe dimaggio playground and the neighbors here who have fought and fought and fought. the giants actually opened up at at&t park in 2000 and it took 12 years or it took 10 years for our first world championship, right? it's taken ten years to get to this spot right now. thank you friends of joe dimaggio playground and thunk lizzy and thank you all for your persistence and thank you for putting the community interest above your self

interests because quite frankly, the kids are in college now since the project started this. is an amazing inspired project and thank you to all of you for making our city great. yes on b! [ applause ] >> thank you phil, what he didn't complete the story we go out to school and do reads and do the poet in the pocket once a year. our next leader gives many, many hours of dedicated service to leading the commission, leading the vision for the library, not only the branch library improvement program, but the array of services and programs that we provide. it's my honor and pleasure to work side by sigh with their, our commissioner president julegomez. [ applause ] . >> thank you so much, what i want to do today in addition to thanking my fellow commissioners teresa and

michael, and thanking the mayor and our supervisors. [ applause ] what i usually like to do is to remind all of us that this is sacred ground. the people who came before most of us, the native people who came before us believed that this ground was sacred and no one is an owner. we are stewards of this ground. the dirt that you are going to play in and plant in is the legacy that those people have left us. it's really appropriate, i think that we have gone to all corners of the city. we have gone east and south and west and we conclude here in the north with our final blessing of this land here in north beach, the home of so many wonderful poets and authors, writers, who bring

great honor to this land. and there is nothing that i can think of more honorable than a library that will bring together all of the worlds that we know and many worlds that we don't yet know will all be on this land for all of us for years to come. thank you so much for your support. we're going to continue to need it as we go forward building. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you, jule. i see another former library commission president and former commissioner charles. thank you for your great service as well. [ applause ] when we talk about partnerships, there is no other group that better defines partnerships for the city and support and the public-private partnership than the friends of the san francisco public library and have provided the funding for